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If FedEx and Amazon set up private airports dedicated to these machines, only put cargo in them, and make their flight routes distinct from other aircraft, I im

If FedEx and Amazon set up private airports dedicated to these machines, only put cargo in them, and make their flight routes distinct from other aircraft, I imagine this could be up and running faster than people think. Edge cases shouldn’t result in loss of life, so getting through regulations and insuring should be much easier than other situations.

emteycz 6y ago
Don't forget that aircraft falls on someone or someone's property.
- oliveshell 6y ago
  To be fair, maintaining straight and level flight— i.e., not falling out of the sky— is the easiest part of flying an airplane. Computers have been good at that for a while; in fact, that’s how airline flights are controlled these days during basically all of cruise flight (by autopilot). Takeoff and landing are the tricky parts. (I say this as someone who’s firmly on the skeptical side of the spectrum regarding the near-term prospects for fully autonomous vehicle control.)
  - HaloZero 6y ago
    Isn't turbulence hard to predict? Could something cause an issue. I always assume pilot take over or at least monitor things more aggressively when the plane starts shaking a lot.
    - manigandham 6y ago
      Turbulence doesn't mean loss of control. It's just rough air for a bit, and computers can manage through it. Modern passenger/cargo planes are designed to be naturally stable (positive static stability) in flight so that disturbances are dampened out. Bigger issues like bad weather and other traffic would likely be programmed well in advance rather than leave that to real-time decisions.
    - panopticon 6y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that most pilot intervention for turbulence was for passenger comfort. If your cargo is secured properly, you should be able to fly through rougher stuff and navigate around the real bad weather that's easier to detect.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    There are landing procedures where the pilot simply follows the machine instructions for a long while already. And it works perfectly well where it's available. Also, the take-off being easier, it's not conceivable that a machine couldn't do it. The reason there is no such machine today is exactly because it's easier, so pilots never need any help. Instead, the hard part isn't flying. it's all the things an airplane does while landed. It's taxing, interacting with other planes, interacting with other vehicles (there are a lot of them in an airport), parking, etc. If the airport is entirely built for automation, I imagine that will become much easier.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      That’s one thing that boggles my mind about airports: it seems like they’re all designed from the ground-up as if it’s the first airport ever built. Terminals too. I get that the biggest airports have grown organically, but I’m surprised a city building a new terminal or airport (Berlin anyone?) can’t order a standard proven design like they’re building a McDonald’s or Holiday Inn.
      - jschwartzi 6y ago
        Airports are built to fit the space they're allocated. And runways have to be sited accounting for approach patterns that can be many hundreds of miles. Given the variation in geography of the planet Earth there's zero one-size fits all construction that can be done. Airports are standardized to the degree they can be standardized. There are entire sections of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Design Handbook devoted to airport terminals and other large transportation spaces. But these spaces have to be designed to fit the place that they are constructed in.
      - manquer 6y ago
        Berlin is disaster and running joke on so many levels. If the city was competent about the project, they would have actually hired people who knew what they were doing. While new terminals and airports are not as standard as Holiday Inn, there are plenty of constraints in most cities [1], that do not allow a lot of room for radical change, and design usually come out not widely different. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZ3eozyQfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZ3eozyQfU
  - nradov 6y ago
    Handling mechanical failures and other in-flight emergencies are the tricky parts.
    - hnarn 6y ago
      That depends on your definition of "tricky". If you mean something that requires human intelligence, I would say it's the complete opposite. More or less the first thing pilots start doing during an emergency is to follow lists, it's all very procedural and most failures have been predicted in advance, as well as what would need to be done to resolve them, or at least eliminate the immediate threat -- and if these procedures do not help, you are in a very bad place anyway. There are exceptions, of course.[1] I would say that the "tricky parts", as always, are very generally the situations that we did not predict and did not program for. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099cHWSbAL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099cHWSbAL8
      - kube-system 6y ago
        The tricky part is not decision making, but sensory awareness.
      - rtkwe 6y ago
        There is one benefit of having people in the loop in that they come with a completely independent set of sensors for flying the aircraft. Look at the recent issues where the single sensor on the Boeing Maxs crash the aircraft. They're far from perfect for sure though(see the times people did the opposite and ignored the correct sensors causing a crash) but there's a definite benefit to having two completely different systems monitoring the data. It's unusual to see that level of safety differentiation, not only having multiple copies of a sensor to take measurements but multiple different designs and types of sensors measuring the same thing to avoid correlated failures.
        outworlder 6y ago
        > the single sensor And this is the problem. We wouldn't have autonomous aircraft without sensor redundancies. Even pilots have multiple redundant instruments.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Takeoff and landing in rough conditions are tricky. Takeoff and landing when the weather is fine is already a solved problem. So is taxiing. https://newatlas.com/aircraft/airbus-attol-autonomous-airliner/ https://newatlas.com/aircraft/airbus-attol-autonomous-airlin...
    - Guest19023892 6y ago
      What's the advantages of a human compared to a computer for landing in rough weather? I would think it's a fairly logical problem. Wind is rotating the plane left, need to move the stick right. Wind is pulling the plane up, need to slow down or push the stick forward, etc. Need to make adjustments past safe levels or can't keep the plane level enough means it's too rough and the landing needs to be aborted. In my mind, it seems like the thing that's perfect for a computer. It can instantly take into consideration hundreds of precise measurements, sensors, and history, and make corrections for the precise amounts. A human has a much slower reaction time and can't make adjustments with the same degree of precision. I feel like a computer could correct a quick gust of wind before a person even has time to move their hand. Compared to a self-driving car where you have all sorts of situations that require complex analysis, like trying to determine if that's a person lying on the highway or an empty garbage bag, this seems like it should be a walk in the park.
      - selectodude 6y ago
        I think one of the key things computers aren't as good as people are is communication. There is a lot of info that a human can convey with a short sentence that a computer would have no chance of doing. The ability for a human to effectively communicate with ground, tower and other aircraft in inclement weather is key.
        loeg 6y ago
        Computer systems can obviously also communicate over radio, and almost certainly at a higher information density than a human operator.
      - 6y ago
  - projektfu 6y ago
    Avoiding icing situations (i.e. thunderstorms) is also important, so route planning and revision is too.
  - loeg 6y ago
    > To be fair, maintaining straight and level flight— i.e., not falling out of the sky— is the easiest part of flying an airplane. Sure. But if it does happen, the self-driving airplane needs to have a landing plan that isn't "fall on a population center." It's not insurmountable, but does need to be baked in.
    - xoa 6y ago
      >But if it does happen, the self-driving airplane needs to have a landing plan that isn't "FALL* on a population center."* Planes don't simply "fall" though, or more specifically it's not a limiting factor for autonomous flight because if they do Fall (due to total structural breakup) there is absolutely nothing a human pilot can do about it either. The more likely worst problem that is still within the realm of "anything can be done about it" is total engine failure (and with it the potential for failure of systems that depend upon engine power as well). Commercial jet aircraft tend to have glide ratios (how far they can go horizontally for each unit they drop vertically) of high single digits to low teens, though some go farther (the 747 for example is 17:1). So from 35000' say they'll typically be able to travel at least 60-110 miles (with some bonus for their initial velocity). The power problem has also needed to be considered long since due to all the fly-by-wire systems, though for an autonomous cargo aircraft this may be another area worth a second look since some weight savings from normal life support might be well spent on additional redundancy. As other posters have pointed out a fully autonomous aircraft just needs to aim for the most sparsely populated area of land or body of water. No need to worry about human life on the aircraft dramatically opens up potential ok ground areas. So a failure at cruising altitude that a piloted aircraft might survive anyway should leave a sizeable radius for an unpiloted aircraft to find a ditch point with low risk to human life. So ultimately while yeah sure, of course this should all be formalized, it shouldn't be a real blocker for this application.
      - meheleventyone 6y ago
        So your aircraft is stricken and finds the nearest local field (putting aside commercial desires to protect the cargo too). The aircraft data tells it the field is empty but actually it’s filled with cattle/machinery/a circus/state fair/Trump boat flotilla or otherwise.
  - SteveGerencser 6y ago
    Garmin has already gained FAA approval for an emergency autoland system that integrates with most modern private aircraft. It is designed to be used in case of an emergency where the pilot has "stopped functioning". It finds the nearest appropriate airport, announces it's intentions to ATC and then flies to and lands at that airport. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/
- ShorsHammer 6y ago
  You wouldn't think twice about someone driving that exact same package 3000 km though right? Planes simply don't fall on people even in worst case scenarios. Losing power is actually what every meat pilot trains for.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    In general you're right, planes falling on people is rare, but IIRC sadly one person on the ground died when the Airbus flight PK8303 flight crashed this year in Karachi; some others were injured and most people on the flight were killed.
LastMuel 6y ago
Interestingly enough, there are airports that are dedicated to shippers. For example, there's Wilmington Air Park in Wilmington, OH: https://www.wilmingtonairpark.com/ https://www.wilmingtonairpark.com/ Apparently, Amazon started flying through there in September of 2019: https://airportimprovement.com/article/wilmington-air-park-welcomes-amazon-new-tenant https://airportimprovement.com/article/wilmington-air-park-w...
- walrus01 6y ago
  the fort worth alliance airport in texas is a much better, larger example of this.
jaywalk 6y ago
I don't think distinct flight routes would be necessary or even preferable. They'd have to integrate these planes into the national airspace system, and at that point you're using the routes (airways) that everyone else uses.
JoblessWonder 6y ago
The issue is finding land that is effective for the transition points. You need these private airports to have easy access to highways/existing cargo/delivery infrastructure. It is usually cheaper to just build your fulfillment center next to an existing airport which already meets these requirements.
loeg 6y ago
> Edge cases shouldn’t result in loss of life, so getting through regulations and insuring should be much easier than other situations. I would hope there is some regulatory concern about flights over populated areas. Yes, there are a number of ways this concern might be addressed, but like everything else, I expect the FAA to be really anal about it. I also hope they are concerned about potential remote hijacking. It is probably desirable that these things can be overridden by a human operator, rather than solely relying on the flight computer. But that opens the possibility to attackers as well.
CommieBobDole 6y ago
If the system is designed right, they could be even safer than piloted planes in the case of an emergency. Currently, if a pilot is flying and, say, the engines stop and can't be restarted, they're going to be thinking about trying to survive and get to a place where they can land or at least ditch the plane survivably. An autonomous system doesn't have to do that - if it decides that the situation is unrecoverable, it can spend its remaining time in the air finding and navigating to the most sparsely populated point of impact within its range. Something like "Engines out and won't restart? Find the nearest/largest body of water and ditch into it".
- btgeekboy 6y ago
  There is at least one autonomous system on the market today that can do just that - find the nearest airport and land. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/
  - homero 6y ago
    That's pretty incredible for those small planes that I doubt have all the sensors jets do
    - TylerE 6y ago
      GPS gets you 99.9% of the way there. Runways are 100+ft wide. 10ft precision is fine.
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        Moreover, high end dual frequency GPS receivers like you'd surely put in a plane will typically have sub-meter precision.
        meheleventyone 6y ago
        Depending on the environment? GPS is still susceptible to signal reflection and LoS blocking.
bronco21016 6y ago
The private airport idea is interesting. From a pilots perspective, one of the major roadblocks to these systems being widely integrated into the current infrastructure is managing traffic. If they’re largely operated separately from manned traffic that eliminates nearly all of those difficult problems. The comment about edge cases causes me to think about weather. I don’t think many non-pilots have a good appreciation of how much complex decision making goes into operating in and around inclement weather. Fuel constraints, airport constraints in terms of equipment, weather, and traffic, unreliable forecasting, etc. Theres a lot that goes into it and each aircraft begins making decisions that involve several people, including the on-board pilots. It seems like you can have one operator for 5-10 aircraft but then suddenly the weather rolls through and every single one of those aircraft needs individual attention and planning. Did you save much by still having an operator/craft? Or do you need more stringent weather requirements to operate these aircraft? Or do you try to have the best of both worlds and eventually the autonomous systems just crash themselves in non-populous areas absent other guidance. If these systems are largely grounded every time there’s inclement weather I can’t imagine the people who advertise “the world, on time” are going to be too keen on operating them at scale. Dispatch-ability is a major factor in these types of operations.
- whiddershins 6y ago
  Let’s say you have one virtual pilot for 10 planes. They won’t all be landing at the same time. So that pilot could guide each one down successively during inclement weather. I bet that would be way more fun than the bunches of sitting around that I imagine is currently part of the job.
  - juliansimioni 6y ago
    [pilot here] There's a lot more to managing planes in bad weather than landing them: you can't exactly fly through a thunderstorm. Furthermore, sometimes go/no-go decisions have to be made a long way out. If it looks like there might be lots of thunderstorms near your destination, it's sometimes prudent to divert immediately rather than risk being near an airport with weather too bad to land AND low fuel. A great example is a youtube video by stevo1kinevo: he's flying a TBM 850 (fast turboprop) from Florida to Boston International. While checking the weather enroute he decides the chance of storms near Boston is too high, and with the complexity of getting in and out of a major airport, he decides well in advance to divert to an airport on Long Island. This sort of stuff happens all the time and is the very definition of good airmanship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw
takeda 6y ago
My worry is that once these things are fully automated and planes are no longer manned this will also create an infrastructure for future 9/11 like attacks.

emteycz 6y ago

Don't forget that aircraft falls on someone or someone's property.

oliveshell 6y ago
To be fair, maintaining straight and level flight— i.e., not falling out of the sky— is the easiest part of flying an airplane. Computers have been good at that for a while; in fact, that’s how airline flights are controlled these days during basically all of cruise flight (by autopilot). Takeoff and landing are the tricky parts. (I say this as someone who’s firmly on the skeptical side of the spectrum regarding the near-term prospects for fully autonomous vehicle control.)
- HaloZero 6y ago
  Isn't turbulence hard to predict? Could something cause an issue. I always assume pilot take over or at least monitor things more aggressively when the plane starts shaking a lot.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    Turbulence doesn't mean loss of control. It's just rough air for a bit, and computers can manage through it. Modern passenger/cargo planes are designed to be naturally stable (positive static stability) in flight so that disturbances are dampened out. Bigger issues like bad weather and other traffic would likely be programmed well in advance rather than leave that to real-time decisions.
  - panopticon 6y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that most pilot intervention for turbulence was for passenger comfort. If your cargo is secured properly, you should be able to fly through rougher stuff and navigate around the real bad weather that's easier to detect.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  There are landing procedures where the pilot simply follows the machine instructions for a long while already. And it works perfectly well where it's available. Also, the take-off being easier, it's not conceivable that a machine couldn't do it. The reason there is no such machine today is exactly because it's easier, so pilots never need any help. Instead, the hard part isn't flying. it's all the things an airplane does while landed. It's taxing, interacting with other planes, interacting with other vehicles (there are a lot of them in an airport), parking, etc. If the airport is entirely built for automation, I imagine that will become much easier.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    That’s one thing that boggles my mind about airports: it seems like they’re all designed from the ground-up as if it’s the first airport ever built. Terminals too. I get that the biggest airports have grown organically, but I’m surprised a city building a new terminal or airport (Berlin anyone?) can’t order a standard proven design like they’re building a McDonald’s or Holiday Inn.
    - jschwartzi 6y ago
      Airports are built to fit the space they're allocated. And runways have to be sited accounting for approach patterns that can be many hundreds of miles. Given the variation in geography of the planet Earth there's zero one-size fits all construction that can be done. Airports are standardized to the degree they can be standardized. There are entire sections of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Design Handbook devoted to airport terminals and other large transportation spaces. But these spaces have to be designed to fit the place that they are constructed in.
    - manquer 6y ago
      Berlin is disaster and running joke on so many levels. If the city was competent about the project, they would have actually hired people who knew what they were doing. While new terminals and airports are not as standard as Holiday Inn, there are plenty of constraints in most cities [1], that do not allow a lot of room for radical change, and design usually come out not widely different. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZ3eozyQfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QZ3eozyQfU
- nradov 6y ago
  Handling mechanical failures and other in-flight emergencies are the tricky parts.
  - hnarn 6y ago
    That depends on your definition of "tricky". If you mean something that requires human intelligence, I would say it's the complete opposite. More or less the first thing pilots start doing during an emergency is to follow lists, it's all very procedural and most failures have been predicted in advance, as well as what would need to be done to resolve them, or at least eliminate the immediate threat -- and if these procedures do not help, you are in a very bad place anyway. There are exceptions, of course.[1] I would say that the "tricky parts", as always, are very generally the situations that we did not predict and did not program for. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099cHWSbAL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099cHWSbAL8
    - kube-system 6y ago
      The tricky part is not decision making, but sensory awareness.
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      There is one benefit of having people in the loop in that they come with a completely independent set of sensors for flying the aircraft. Look at the recent issues where the single sensor on the Boeing Maxs crash the aircraft. They're far from perfect for sure though(see the times people did the opposite and ignored the correct sensors causing a crash) but there's a definite benefit to having two completely different systems monitoring the data. It's unusual to see that level of safety differentiation, not only having multiple copies of a sensor to take measurements but multiple different designs and types of sensors measuring the same thing to avoid correlated failures.
      - outworlder 6y ago
        > the single sensor And this is the problem. We wouldn't have autonomous aircraft without sensor redundancies. Even pilots have multiple redundant instruments.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Takeoff and landing in rough conditions are tricky. Takeoff and landing when the weather is fine is already a solved problem. So is taxiing. https://newatlas.com/aircraft/airbus-attol-autonomous-airliner/ https://newatlas.com/aircraft/airbus-attol-autonomous-airlin...
  - Guest19023892 6y ago
    What's the advantages of a human compared to a computer for landing in rough weather? I would think it's a fairly logical problem. Wind is rotating the plane left, need to move the stick right. Wind is pulling the plane up, need to slow down or push the stick forward, etc. Need to make adjustments past safe levels or can't keep the plane level enough means it's too rough and the landing needs to be aborted. In my mind, it seems like the thing that's perfect for a computer. It can instantly take into consideration hundreds of precise measurements, sensors, and history, and make corrections for the precise amounts. A human has a much slower reaction time and can't make adjustments with the same degree of precision. I feel like a computer could correct a quick gust of wind before a person even has time to move their hand. Compared to a self-driving car where you have all sorts of situations that require complex analysis, like trying to determine if that's a person lying on the highway or an empty garbage bag, this seems like it should be a walk in the park.
    - selectodude 6y ago
      I think one of the key things computers aren't as good as people are is communication. There is a lot of info that a human can convey with a short sentence that a computer would have no chance of doing. The ability for a human to effectively communicate with ground, tower and other aircraft in inclement weather is key.
      - loeg 6y ago
        Computer systems can obviously also communicate over radio, and almost certainly at a higher information density than a human operator.
    - 6y ago
- projektfu 6y ago
  Avoiding icing situations (i.e. thunderstorms) is also important, so route planning and revision is too.
- loeg 6y ago
  > To be fair, maintaining straight and level flight— i.e., not falling out of the sky— is the easiest part of flying an airplane. Sure. But if it does happen, the self-driving airplane needs to have a landing plan that isn't "fall on a population center." It's not insurmountable, but does need to be baked in.
  - xoa 6y ago
    >But if it does happen, the self-driving airplane needs to have a landing plan that isn't "FALL* on a population center."* Planes don't simply "fall" though, or more specifically it's not a limiting factor for autonomous flight because if they do Fall (due to total structural breakup) there is absolutely nothing a human pilot can do about it either. The more likely worst problem that is still within the realm of "anything can be done about it" is total engine failure (and with it the potential for failure of systems that depend upon engine power as well). Commercial jet aircraft tend to have glide ratios (how far they can go horizontally for each unit they drop vertically) of high single digits to low teens, though some go farther (the 747 for example is 17:1). So from 35000' say they'll typically be able to travel at least 60-110 miles (with some bonus for their initial velocity). The power problem has also needed to be considered long since due to all the fly-by-wire systems, though for an autonomous cargo aircraft this may be another area worth a second look since some weight savings from normal life support might be well spent on additional redundancy. As other posters have pointed out a fully autonomous aircraft just needs to aim for the most sparsely populated area of land or body of water. No need to worry about human life on the aircraft dramatically opens up potential ok ground areas. So a failure at cruising altitude that a piloted aircraft might survive anyway should leave a sizeable radius for an unpiloted aircraft to find a ditch point with low risk to human life. So ultimately while yeah sure, of course this should all be formalized, it shouldn't be a real blocker for this application.
    - meheleventyone 6y ago
      So your aircraft is stricken and finds the nearest local field (putting aside commercial desires to protect the cargo too). The aircraft data tells it the field is empty but actually it’s filled with cattle/machinery/a circus/state fair/Trump boat flotilla or otherwise.
- SteveGerencser 6y ago
  Garmin has already gained FAA approval for an emergency autoland system that integrates with most modern private aircraft. It is designed to be used in case of an emergency where the pilot has "stopped functioning". It finds the nearest appropriate airport, announces it's intentions to ATC and then flies to and lands at that airport. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/
ShorsHammer 6y ago
You wouldn't think twice about someone driving that exact same package 3000 km though right? Planes simply don't fall on people even in worst case scenarios. Losing power is actually what every meat pilot trains for.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  In general you're right, planes falling on people is rare, but IIRC sadly one person on the ground died when the Airbus flight PK8303 flight crashed this year in Karachi; some others were injured and most people on the flight were killed.

LastMuel 6y ago

Interestingly enough, there are airports that are dedicated to shippers. For example, there's Wilmington Air Park in Wilmington, OH: https://www.wilmingtonairpark.com/ https://www.wilmingtonairpark.com/ Apparently, Amazon started flying through there in September of 2019: https://airportimprovement.com/article/wilmington-air-park-welcomes-amazon-new-tenant https://airportimprovement.com/article/wilmington-air-park-w...

walrus01 6y ago
the fort worth alliance airport in texas is a much better, larger example of this.

jaywalk 6y ago

I don't think distinct flight routes would be necessary or even preferable. They'd have to integrate these planes into the national airspace system, and at that point you're using the routes (airways) that everyone else uses.

JoblessWonder 6y ago

The issue is finding land that is effective for the transition points. You need these private airports to have easy access to highways/existing cargo/delivery infrastructure. It is usually cheaper to just build your fulfillment center next to an existing airport which already meets these requirements.

loeg 6y ago

> Edge cases shouldn’t result in loss of life, so getting through regulations and insuring should be much easier than other situations. I would hope there is some regulatory concern about flights over populated areas. Yes, there are a number of ways this concern might be addressed, but like everything else, I expect the FAA to be really anal about it. I also hope they are concerned about potential remote hijacking. It is probably desirable that these things can be overridden by a human operator, rather than solely relying on the flight computer. But that opens the possibility to attackers as well.

CommieBobDole 6y ago

If the system is designed right, they could be even safer than piloted planes in the case of an emergency. Currently, if a pilot is flying and, say, the engines stop and can't be restarted, they're going to be thinking about trying to survive and get to a place where they can land or at least ditch the plane survivably. An autonomous system doesn't have to do that - if it decides that the situation is unrecoverable, it can spend its remaining time in the air finding and navigating to the most sparsely populated point of impact within its range. Something like "Engines out and won't restart? Find the nearest/largest body of water and ditch into it".

btgeekboy 6y ago
There is at least one autonomous system on the market today that can do just that - find the nearest airport and land. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/ https://www.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/
- homero 6y ago
  That's pretty incredible for those small planes that I doubt have all the sensors jets do
  - TylerE 6y ago
    GPS gets you 99.9% of the way there. Runways are 100+ft wide. 10ft precision is fine.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      Moreover, high end dual frequency GPS receivers like you'd surely put in a plane will typically have sub-meter precision.
      - meheleventyone 6y ago
        Depending on the environment? GPS is still susceptible to signal reflection and LoS blocking.

bronco21016 6y ago

The private airport idea is interesting. From a pilots perspective, one of the major roadblocks to these systems being widely integrated into the current infrastructure is managing traffic. If they’re largely operated separately from manned traffic that eliminates nearly all of those difficult problems. The comment about edge cases causes me to think about weather. I don’t think many non-pilots have a good appreciation of how much complex decision making goes into operating in and around inclement weather. Fuel constraints, airport constraints in terms of equipment, weather, and traffic, unreliable forecasting, etc. Theres a lot that goes into it and each aircraft begins making decisions that involve several people, including the on-board pilots. It seems like you can have one operator for 5-10 aircraft but then suddenly the weather rolls through and every single one of those aircraft needs individual attention and planning. Did you save much by still having an operator/craft? Or do you need more stringent weather requirements to operate these aircraft? Or do you try to have the best of both worlds and eventually the autonomous systems just crash themselves in non-populous areas absent other guidance. If these systems are largely grounded every time there’s inclement weather I can’t imagine the people who advertise “the world, on time” are going to be too keen on operating them at scale. Dispatch-ability is a major factor in these types of operations.

whiddershins 6y ago
Let’s say you have one virtual pilot for 10 planes. They won’t all be landing at the same time. So that pilot could guide each one down successively during inclement weather. I bet that would be way more fun than the bunches of sitting around that I imagine is currently part of the job.
- juliansimioni 6y ago
  [pilot here] There's a lot more to managing planes in bad weather than landing them: you can't exactly fly through a thunderstorm. Furthermore, sometimes go/no-go decisions have to be made a long way out. If it looks like there might be lots of thunderstorms near your destination, it's sometimes prudent to divert immediately rather than risk being near an airport with weather too bad to land AND low fuel. A great example is a youtube video by stevo1kinevo: he's flying a TBM 850 (fast turboprop) from Florida to Boston International. While checking the weather enroute he decides the chance of storms near Boston is too high, and with the complexity of getting in and out of a major airport, he decides well in advance to divert to an airport on Long Island. This sort of stuff happens all the time and is the very definition of good airmanship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZzOsXya4zw

takeda 6y ago

My worry is that once these things are fully automated and planes are no longer manned this will also create an infrastructure for future 9/11 like attacks.